Project ADHD aims Saturday late-night TV at adolescents

Veteran character actor Jack McGee, known for his stints on “NYPD Blue” and “Rescue Me,” is in a shoe-box-size room gobbling like a turkey, to the immense pleasure of four grown men.

“Sound a little more defeated,” the writers and producers instruct him.

Playing an evil ruler of a planet has its challenges — more so when it’s an animated character dubbed Turkey Turkey.

“What is this? Which network is this for?” McGee asks with a quizzical face once he’s finished.

The show is called “Axe Cop,” based on the Web comic about a stoic, mustached crime fighter who eats only birthday cake.

It’s one of Fox’s animated commissions that will be vying for attention on Saturday nights. Yes, Saturday nights.

The network long ago established a firm grip in the animation genre with its Sunday-night block of cartoons, propped by stalwarts “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy.”

Now it’s coloring a bit outside the lines, delving further into the circuit with a project it calls Animation Domination High-Def, or ADHD.

The outpost of programming aspires to serve as a destination for an audience of adolescents and young men who might rather spend their Saturday nights partying or playing “Metal Gear Rising.”

Its slate of 10-to-12-minute off-kilter cartoons will air on TV’s castaway night from 11 p.m. to midnight, a tricky slot ignored by most networks (and most viewers).

Showing its hipness, the experience won’t stop at the remote. The shows will be supplemented with digital frills on the Internet (GIFs, animated shorts, user-adapted content), making the ADHD acronym all the more fitting.

Watch it

“Axe Cop” premieres at 11 tonight on Fox followed by “High school USA!” at 11:15 p.m. Both are rated TV-14-DLSV (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14, with advisories for suggestive dialogue, coarse language, sex and violence).